Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate! Three Adoptions!

I'm stunned!!!! First, Kathy wrote yesterday, saying that Poco and Teddy found a home with a nice couple... TOGETHER! And then, just as I was about to do tonight's post, I got an email from Carole letting me know that sweet Skippy found his furever home. Hopefully we'll have some more details, soon, but for now, wish each of these young men all the best with their new families!














Skippy, Poco and Teddy
It's been raining around here... and now we can say it's pouring good news!

Mama makes the roomier box roomier still... better to see her nursing!

Yesterday, I moved the "roll" forward in the box to give the growing family more room. "Ha!" said LBC, "Watch this!" and proceeded to push out the back of the box (as you can see in the photo). There is a rug under the box, extending to the back wall, in case the little ones decide to explore a bit, so I think I'll leave it for today and then turn the box around tomorrow. We'll see if I can't entice the little family into a "nest." We have two... a nice quilted one that Franca sent us and a larger, but lighter one that Ali gave to us. I think I might start with Franca's, since it's more cave like. I think it will be less threatening for LBC.

Hyacinth hit the nail on the head... we're going to be trying for streaming video in a few weeks. It's just too busy right now for me to work on it and I don't want to impose too much on the neph's good will. I can peek in during the day, but the current set up only allows 10 people watch at once... and we've still got a few technical difficulties.

I guarantee nothing but, if you'd like to try before it is ready for prime time, go to http://hsp.from-md.com. You'll get an authentication window - just hit cancel. Then you'll get a black screen. If you're lucky, it will change over to the feed fairly quickly. Or not. Once you get a feed it may go in and out. Very frustrating. (But isn't that always the way with new tech - then, once you finally get the hang of it, and figure out the idiot thing you were doing wrong, it seems so simple.) Seems the intermittent "black" was not mama against the lens, as we first thought it might be!

Our Sophie says, "You haven't been paying enough attention to ME!!" So to make amends, here's some Sophie belly:


And, last but not least (daily, until the big day), we give you our shameless plug for the March for the Animals & NAME THOSE BABIES!

Our lady Two Legs is doing the March for the Animals on Sunday, April 17th, to raise green papers for the MD SPCA. I'm going to round up my siblings and we are going to help! If you can help, in ANY amount, you get a chance to name my sister and brothers and me!!!! Click here, to find out more!

Our sincere thanks to everyone who has pitched in to help!

Adopt the Internet Day

Thanks to The Cats of Wildcat Woods, we were reminded that today is Adopt the Internet Day!!! And how perfect - we'd planned to reactivate our Petfinder account to help Poco and Teddy (and tomorrow, a surprise new face... no, not Wally, someone else!) find homes, so we hustled our butt up and did it! Here are the details:

What It's All About In honor of Petfinder's 15th birthday, Petfinder is asking people everywhere to pledge to spread the word online about adoptable pets on March 15, 2011.

What You Can Do Now

• Add a badge (like the neat one above) to your Web site to show your support.
• Take the pledge that you will tell one person about pet adoption. By pledging, you'll enter for a chance to win one of 10 Pet Hair Eraser^®Vacuums from BISSELL.
• Donate your Facebook status and photo to an adoptable Petfinder pet. Simply replace your photo with one from the Adopt-the-Internet All-Stars gallery and post one of these messages:
• More than 320,000 pets are waiting for homes on Petfinder.com. Help Petfinder Adopt the Internet today and find forever homes for as many as possible!
• I adopted my pet from Petfinder and now I want to help get this pet adopted! If you want to help pets in need of forever homes, please repost this!
• Share an adoptable Petfinder pet on Twitter with the hashtag #adopttheinternet.
• Add a link to your blog, Facebook or Twitter post to Petfinder's Adopt the Internet page!

Simple!!

And who are we promoting? Well, of course, Poco and Teddy and the little lady who has been in our sidebar from TCOWW, pretty Avon. Click on any one for more details!!

Oh, and what about Wally?? We're still waiting! *sigh* Sophie is worried she will never have a boyfriend... but we're telling her patience is a virtue!!

Updates and Getting to Know Teddy

We have updates and news!!

Frankie's Mom reports that Mittens and her family have found homes!!! That's right, all four of them now have loving furever families!! What great news! An update, with pictures (still heartbreaking, but better) are on the BARCS site. And Judy wanted to be sure we thanked everyone for reposting, tweeting, emailing and for all the contributions to the Franky fund for injured animals you made in honor of Mittens.

Brian reports that Little Bit (see last post) is in a new foster home and no longer in danger of being euthanized! His post gives more details. Again, thank you everyone for the reposting, tweets and emails that helped to make this rescue possible! (Have I mentioned that YOU GUYS ROCK!?) Please, go say thanks to new foster mom, Marge!

Our friend, Bethany, at Capital Animals has become the coordinator for Meow Mixers at the Washington Humane Society. The first mixer will be on 4/17 so, if you live in or around DC, and are free that evening, consider popping over and showing your support!

Pop on over to Brian's, if you haven't been there today - he's introducing us to Bufano, a sweet CH puppy, who needs a foster home geared to special needs.

Now, on to meet Mr. Teddy AnnaMaeson

Anna Mae is Kathy's neighbor and she took Teddy since both households were about full up. Kathy reports:

Teddy is Poco's brother, also around 1-yr old. (We know they are brothers by their markings and their similar behavior.) He was discovered outside a little after Poco because Teddy is slightly more shy. He is the dearest, sweetest thing. My neighbor named him Teddy because he is very much like a teddy bear. Like Poco, he loves, loves, loves to be petted and went for the loving hand before food when he was living outside in December and very cold and hungry.

For awhile, he had emergency shelter in an igloo on my deck. When I could logistically bring him inside, I'd get down on the kitchen floor and he'd flop over on the floor next to me, happy as a clam to be petted and snuggled, if only for a moment. He loves people and is very appreciative for what he is given. I think Teddy could do well as an only-cat, or with other cats. For awhile, when competing with his brother for resources outside, I saw that he was the under-cat. I saw that other cats were aggressive towards him. So that gave him a special place in my heart. After he was given love and food for awhile, he became more self-confident.

He was neutered and given all shots and vaccines and de-parasite treatments.

Kathy and Anna Mae will be sending us a few more pics and updates soon, we hope.

And Sophie still waits.

Wally, wherefore art thou?

Up Close and Personal with Poco

But first, this important PSA...

I'm keeping this at the top of each post until we know Little Bit's fate. Please go over to Brian's Home. Little Bit, a sweet SC lass, is urgently in need of a home. She's gone through traumatic surgery, is having problems recovering because of being caged, and now will be out of time at her shelter on Friday, 3/11. Spread the word, good folks... Tweet, FB, and repost... this little intertube community of ours has done amazing things. Let's pull one off for her! As our good Auntie would say, "LET'S ROCK THIS!"

*******

Now, let's get up close and personal with the lovable Poco!

Details about Poco (he was the one she housed, says Kathy, so she knows more about him):

This guy has the cutest personality and he's routinely funny. He is around 1-year old, and has plenty of kitten curiosity but is also quite the diplomat with other animals and he seems to have a mature, watchful acceptance of new situations. He loves people and is curious about other pets and not overly shy nor overly aggressive. Very well-adjusted! I think he might do well in a house with other animals, including a dog.

He, like his brother, completely loves to be petted. He will close his eyes and purr loudly. When found, he loved being petted more than getting food -- and he was starving. A really neat thing about this guy is that he's easy to medicate! When found, he had many parasites, which needed various courses of antibiotics. I could just kneel down, put fingers lightly on the outside edges of his mouth, and pop a pill partway down his throat, as the technique is done. Not many cats will let you do that!

Funny stuff: One day he trotted into the room with an old sock toy of Ernie's (my now-deceased dog) in his mouth -- just like a dog! Also, when in the bathroom, you may see 'the claw' -- the arm extended under the door or to the side of the door. He is very playful! But he also settles down to nestle next to you on the couch and fall deeply asleep.

He was neutered and given all shots and vaccines and de-parasite treatments.

What a lover!! Tomorrow, we'll get a closer look at handsome Teddy!

We Need to Do a Better Job in Our Own Back Yard!!

Before you go to our regularly scheduled self-chastisement post, please go over to Brian's Home. Little Bit, a sweet SC lass, is urgently in need of a home. She's gone through traumatic surgery, is having problems recovering because of being caged, and now will be out of time at her shelter on Friday, 3/11. Spread the word, good folks... Tweet, FB, and repost... this little intertube community of ours has done amazing things. Let's pull one off for her! As our good Auntie would say, "LET'S ROCK THIS!"

*******

Aaack!! Remember I've mentioned that lots of folks around the 'tute have been finding, fostering and homing critters on their own for years, with little fanfare?!! Well, turns out we could have been helping one of them for a couple of months now... only they didn't realize that ANY member of STScI is welcome to promote their foster on the blog! How did I let that happen?!!!! Aaaack! [Danny, I'm so sorry I didn't get that article done for the Scope (our internal rag) now! I will be getting on it ASAP!]

Over the next two days, we'll introduce you to two young mancats, Teddy and Poco, that one of our STScI colleagues is working with closely to find homes.

Here's the story:

This winter, Kathy and her neighbor sheltered a pair of stray brothers (they're pretty sure they're brothers... they do kinda look alike, appear to be the same age, and showed up together) who were hungry and freezing, even though their homes were pretty much full up. They gave the boys the usual medical workups and lotsa TLC to get them ready to find furever homes.

Sadly, an illness in Kathy's family is now requiring her to frequently travel out of town and doesn't leave her with enough time to work with her new charge, Poco. In the hopes of perhaps even being able to have the brothers adopted together, they got in touch with the MD SPCA to help. Poco and Teddy had their first public meet'n'greet on Saturday. When I saw the sign she posted, I called and Kathy and offered to put them on the blog... and found out she hadn't realized she could have been using us all along!

We'll give Poco his own write up tomorrow and give Teddy his on Wednesday.

And poor Sophie is still waiting...

But we have some good news. Wally came to Rancho J2 for a visit, soaked, on Sunday night around 11 pm. He let Joy feed him a can of food and even reach out and brush him!! This is a great sign!! We're getting closer to getting him in that carrier and on his way to the Casa for sure!! The waiting for him to trust enough is soooo hard! We'd rather let him get comfy enough to scoop up than use a trap, if possible.

So see you tomorrow for brother #1. And I think we're going to get a visit with alumni Trudy and Lawrie soon, too!!